Leading British visual effects software company, The Foundry, whose products have been used to make globally acclaimed movies such as Avatar, Alice in Wonderland and District 9, has earned a Distinguished Honoree medal in The 2010 International Business Awards as the Most Innovative Company of the Year in Europe.
The International Business Awards are the only global, all-encompassing business awards program honoring great performances in business. Nicknamed the Stevie® for the Greek word “crowned,” the awards will be presented to honorees at a gala dinner on Monday, 27 September in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey. Honorees were determined through two rounds of judging by professionals worldwide, and selected from more than 1,700 entries received from organizations and individuals in more than 40 countries.
As a world-leading innovator of visual effects and image processing technologies that boost productivity in motion picture and video post-production, The Foundry has seen great success over the last few years – both in terms of technology innovation and the business. To cope with the demand for the company's products, The Foundry has grown from 47 to over 80 people since January 2009, and is still forecasting margins of 35% for 2010. Much of this growth has been driven by The Foundry reaching a dominant market position in the feature-film post-production compositing market, where its Nuke product has now become the industry leader.
The company's early support for the emerging stereo-3D market – now all-important – has also been a key growth driver. The Foundry began investing in its support for stereo-3D workflows in 2007, collaborating closely in particular with Weta Digital on Avatar.
In the last year The Foundry has negotiated deals with industry giants Weta Digital and Sony Pictures Imageworks to bring internally developed software products Mari and Katana to market. The public success of these collaborations has generated interest from other high-profile facilities, and The Foundry will announce further deals within this year. Since January 2009, The Foundry has also negotiated site-wide licenses for its software to major post-production facilities including Cinesite, The Moving Picture Company, Prime Focus, AAA and Rising Sun Pictures.
The Foundry has won an iaward for entertainment and media for their plug-in tool, Ocula. The Foundry has also been short-listed in the Red Herring Top 100 Europe 2010 awards. In addition, Simon Robinson, founder and Chief Scientist, has been listed amongst Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business. In 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded a Sci-Tech Award® to The Foundry’s development team for the Furnace image processing suite – and the company also holds two products with AMPAS Sci-Tech Award® winning technology including high-end compositing system Nuke.
Bill Collis, CEO, The Foundry, said, “We are really delighted to have been awarded a Distinguished Honoree Stevie® as the Most Innovative Company of the Year in Europe. As a company we are constantly striving to deliver what we hear that our customers need and want – and we have built an intelligent, pioneering and inventive team who are able to deliver.”
Michael Gallagher, president of The Stevie Awards, presenters of the IBAs, said, “Despite the harsh economic climate, entries to the IBAs actually grew a bit this year, and that illustrates the increasing importance of The International Business Awards worldwide. We congratulate all of the honorees, and we look forward to recognizing them for their achievements at our gala awards dinner in Istanbul on 27 September.”